Tag: ancestor memory

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: How To Find Those Lost Ancestors

 carol p. christ 2002 color

This post was originally published on Jan. 21st, 2013

Over the past year I have written several blogs on ancestor connection.  In this blog I will share what I have learned about how to find ancestors.

I recommend the popular television series Who Do You Think You Are? which has US, UK, and Australian, and other versions, and the PBS series hosted by Henry Louis Gates, African American Lives and Finding Your Roots.  While you might think, as I did, that genealogical research is about finding the names and birthplaces of ancestors, these programs set the genealogical quest in the great flow of history.

Records show that I have ancestors who immigrated to the United States from Ireland, Scotland, Prussia, and Germany in the early 1850s.  Historical research tells me that more than a million people left Ireland and Scotland in the 1850s due to the “potato famine,”* which affected the rest of Europe as well.  History explains why ancestors emigrated.

Begin your search by asking parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, for names, dates, places of residence, stories, and other information they remember.  Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: How To Find Those Lost Ancestors”

GRANDMOTHER MOON by Iona Jenkins

Blue Supermoon at 9.30p.m. on 30th August 2023

This year, the full moon on 30th August, which was a Super Moon, is also called Blue Moon – the name given to a second full moon occurring in the same month. I stayed up meditating and reflecting, because the rising of this moon flooded both my front room and my awareness with a light of great beauty. Beginning gold, she changed into a robe of silver, and eventually pearl white, with a crown of pastel shades, in her vault of luminous blue flecked with white feathered clouds. The full moon is always an inspiration, a Goddess who lights up the psyche, revealing hidden shadows to be faced, firing intuition, or illuminating the soul with her timeless wisdom. She has become my good friend over the years, and in my life as an elder human being, she offers me inspiration, visions of creative wisdom and possibility on those gold and silver paths stretching between the shores of Wales and The County of Somerset in England.

Continue reading “GRANDMOTHER MOON by Iona Jenkins”

Finding Missing Pieces of My Ancestral Story: Scotland and Ireland by Carol P. Christ

When I began researching years ago, I knew the names of my grandparents and what country in Europe their ancestors were from, but not much more. I have now traced most of my ancestors back to the Old Country, some to the 1600s. But there remained four ancestors with unknown places of origin among my sixteen 2x great-grandparents. A week or so ago, I decided to go back to the online resources, focusing on James Inglis, the Scottish seaman, and his Irish wife, Anne Corliss. This time I was more experienced, and I was determined to find the records.

Several sources confirmed that James’ parents were James and Isabella. Unfortunately, more than one James Inglis was born about 1838 to parents with these names. I had already ruled these Jameses out, because they were living in Scotland during the 1861 census, while my ancestor was by that time married and living in New York City. Scottish birth, marriage, and death records are incomplete before 1855 when civil registration was required; neither the marriage of James’ parents, nor his birth record were online. Continue reading “Finding Missing Pieces of My Ancestral Story: Scotland and Ireland by Carol P. Christ”

How To Find Those Lost Ancestors by Carol P. Christ

 carol p. christ 2002 color

Over the past year I have written several blogs on ancestor connection.  In this blog I will share what I have learned about how to find ancestors.

I recommend the popular television series Who Do You Think You Are? which has US, UK, and Australian, and other versions, and the PBS series hosted by Henry Louis Gates, African American Lives and Finding Your Roots.  While you might think, as I did, that genealogical research is about finding the names and birthplaces of ancestors, these programs set the genealogical quest in the great flow of history.

Records show that I have ancestors who immigrated to the United States from Ireland, Scotland, Prussia, and Germany in the early 1850s.  Historical research tells me that more than a million people left Ireland and Scotland in the 1850s due to the “potato famine,”* which affected the rest of Europe as well.  History explains why ancestors emigrated.

Begin your search by asking parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, for names, dates, places of residence, stories, and other information they remember.  Continue reading “How To Find Those Lost Ancestors by Carol P. Christ”